Brussels, 10/10/2003 (Agence Europe) - The Grand European information society prize was awarded by Information Society European Commissioner, Erkki Liikanaen, to Lucio Stanca, Italian Minister fort Innovation and Technology and Pasquala Pistorio, President of STPicroelectronics during the Information Society Technology (IST) conference 2003 in Milan on Tuesday.
Three prize winners share the major prize this year and will each receive EUR 20, 000. Picsel Tehnologies (United Kingdom) developed a cordless multimedia management ePAGE™ system that enables visualisation on mobile devices, PDA's, games consoles, set top boxes or in car systems. InSightec (Israel) for ExAblate 2000(TM), which literally burns off tumours in the body more effectively than existing laser techniques. CEDES and CSEM manufacture the ESPROS/TOF 3D cameras for high-performance and mass-market applications: the first commercial miniaturised and cost-effective 3D camera. The European Commission asserts that this financial award, together with the very considerable investor interest generated by the IST prize itself, has repeatedly been shown to constitute an important source of start-up finance for the commercialisation of successful IST prototypes.
The three grand prize winners competed against 420 innovative projects from 28 countries. More information on the IST prizes are available on the website: (http: //http://www.ist-prize.org/ ).